Letters to the Editor: Readers weigh in on proposed projects as well as the 2nd Amendment; association invites locals to meet city manager and police chief
This is in answer to comments by NRA supporters. I just want to say something about honoring the 2nd Amendment. Our Founding Fathers gave us the 2nd Amendment. Should we not keep it the way it was envisioned?
When they were giving us the right to bear arms, they were speaking only of the single-shot rifle. Apparently the NRA doesn’t see it this way. Yes, why not kill a few more hundred people and innocent children?
Let us give our children a chance to grow up.
Robert Tarallo
La Crescenta
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The city of Glendale’s Design Review Board is broken. The duty of the DRB is to review building plans concerning site plan and design issues prior to the issuance of building permits for projects without statutory exemption. On Nov. 29, 2011, the city of Glendale adopted the Comprehensive Design Guidelines, which in practice should be the guiding force behind decisions made by the DRB. What has happened as of late is that the DRB has been inconsistent in its decisions, which have forced those “losing” before the DRB to be left with either accepting the review board’s decision or filing an expensive appeal to City Council.
The DRB recently approved a two-story, 5,400-square-foot home to be built in on Cumberland Terrace, a neighborhood that has no existing two-story homes and where the average home size on the street is 2,442 square feet. Looking at the story poles currently at the property, it is clear the mass and scale of this proposed project is in violation of the guidelines and is incompatible with the existing, modestly sized Mid-century modern and traditional homes, yet the DRB approved it. The extensive proposed backyard hardscaping and pool area was not even addressed by the DRB. On the same night, a similar project was reviewed with a different lens.
City Council should issue a directive to the DRB that it must hold each and every project to the same interpretation of the guidelines and that DRB members should be retrained to better adhere to the Comprehensive Design Guidelines.
Lee Straus
Glendale
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Anyone interested in meeting and asking questions of Glendale’s new police chief and our new city manager will have the opportunity on Thursday, June 21, at 7 p.m., at Brand Library Auditorium.
Yasmin Beers, our first female city manager, and Chief Carl Povilaitis will be guest speakers at the Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn.’ annual meeting, which is open to the entire community.
The association strives to hold meetings so all Glendalians have the opportunity to meet city officials. One does not need to be a member to attend.
Brand Library is at Brand Park, 1601 W. Mountain, at Grandview Avenue.
Carol Brusha
NWGHA Board Member
Glendale
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Following the scandalous footsteps of California charter schools, Glendale Unified School District continues its shady real estate transaction with developer Carmel Partners. Misrepresented as a “property exchange,” it is essentially a sale of public property, whereby GUSD will give away 3 acres’ of improved land (at 206 N. Kenwood; 223-241 N. Jackson; 316 W. Palmer streets) and over $5 million in cash to the developer, in return for 1 acre of improved land at 425 E. Colorado Street.
Well aware of the developer’s aggressive plans for the site, GUSD contractually bound itself to help the developer obtain permits/entitlements from the city. As such, GUSD uses its public authority to enrich the developer.
The developer’s new plan of a 192-unit building that looks to me to be nearly five stories (even though they say it is four stories), is as onerous as the plan rejected before and should not sway city officials. It is inconsistent with zoning requirements. It will exacerbate the health and safety concerns in and near the Downtown Specific Plan, for which a moratorium was adopted. It will exacerbate the traffic and parking shortage in an already densely populated, heavily congested and parking-scarce area.
The developer will provide only 15 affordable housing units. Even worse, those units will not be in the luxury development, but rather consist of the old nine-unit apartment building and the classroom building to be partially converted into six units.
In the interest of public trust and welfare, the city of Glendale and GUSD must stop this development. A petition can be found at ipetitions.com/petition/stop-the-sale-of-school-public-property-to.
Naira Soghbatyan
Glendale